Development and validation of a ferroptosis-related lncRNAs prognosis signature in colon cancer

Ferroptosis is a form of iron-dependent programmed cell death. Regulation of ferroptosis in tumor cells is a novel treatment modality. The present study aimed to investigate ferroptosis-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and construct a prognostic model for colon adenocarcinoma (COAD). RNA- sequencing data and ferroptosis-related genes were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and FerrDb database. COAD patients were randomly assigned to training- and validation groups. The Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator regression and Cox regression model were used to determine and develop a predictive model. The model was corroborated using the validation group and the entire group. In total, 259 ferroptosis-related genes and 905 ferroptosis-related LncRNAs were obtained. Cox model revealed and constructed seven ferroptosis-related LncRNAs signature (LINC01503, AC004687.1, AC010973.2, AP001189.3, ARRDC1-AS1, OIP5-AS1, and NCK1-DT). Patients were assigned into two groups according to the median risk score. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that overall survival between high- and low-risk groups was statistically significant (P<0.01). Cox multivariate analysis seven ferroptosis-related LncRNAs signature was an independent risk factor for COAD outcomes (P<0.05). The relationship between seven ferroptosis-related LncRNAs and clinicopathological features was also examined. The principal component analysis showed a difference between high- and low-risk groups intuitively. With the aid of gene set enrichment analysis, the underlying mechanisms of seven ferroptosis-related LncRNAs were uncovered, including the MAPK signaling pathway, mTOR signaling pathway, and glutathione metabolism pathway. Finally, we established and validated seven ferroptosis-related lncRNAs signature for COAD patients to predict survival. These results may provide meaningful targets for future study.